What Happens After The Next Line
by Fanfic-Reader-88
Summary: "André had gotten over his wonk... or so it seemed." On the Monday after the concert performance of "365 Days", Jade and the rest of the gang sees that André isn't quite himself. What happens when Jade finds out why? Contains Jade/André (Jandré). Inspired by the episode "Jade Gets Crushed". Also featured in "The Fanfic-Reader-88 Oneshot Collection" and "The Next Line Universe".


**"Ahhhh... I really wish that I could write the next line." Well, maybe I can. But seriously, if you saw the title, the summary, and the beginning of this author's note, then you most likely know where this is going. But if for some reason you don't know, then here it goes. This story here is inspired by "Jade Gets Crushed", particularly the immediate aftermath of that episode, and what might have happened had Jade found out about André's feelings directly from André himself. Now, as far as actually writing this story goes, just like "So Wrong But Still So Right" (the crossover story I posted this past Monday), I'm winging it. But unlike "So Wrong...", the idea behind this has been in my head for quite some time, so this should turn out to be a way better fic. But anyway, without further ado, here is "What Happens After The Next Line". Enjoy.**

**Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon own _Victorious. _**

**(Parking Lot/Asphalt Café at Hollywood Arts High School; Hollywood, Los Angeles, California; Friday October 7, 2011)**

_"...I'll try 365 Days, 365 ways to get to you."_

As the song ended and applause came from the crowd - which consisted mainly of their classmates and teachers, André Harris and Tori Vega had embraced after performing "365 Days", a song that the pair had recorded for André's advanced songwriting class. The pair performing together, particularly on stage, was nothing new, as it had been done quite a few times since they first helped Tori's older sister Trina with "Make It Shine" - the very same song that Tori herself ended up singing that, long story short, allowed her to join her older sibling and the dreadlocked musician at Hollywood Arts nearly two years ago.

But what made this situation unique was that "365 Days" wasn't just any old song. Actually, this song was a practical confession of love for one Jade West: best friend to André, frenemy to Tori, and girlfriend to Beck Oliver. Working on the song and eventually performing it was hard enough, considering that the reason behind it was André's newfound infatuation with the Gothic-styled girl, which oddly enough came about because Jade was originally the one who was supposed to record a song with the singer-songwriter. But for André, the immediate aftermath of the performance was difficult when he was left stunned and speechless after sharing a hug with the young woman who, as he and many others understood, was usually engulfed in a cold-as-ice but hot-like-fire disposition.

Tori was very well aware of André's crush on Jade, which had at one point even led to her dressing like the dark, brooding teen in an effort to snap him out of it, which at the time seemed like it had failed miserably, especially when André had felt the urge to kiss Tori because her imitation of Jade had not only reminded him of the real thing, but had also apparently left him at least somewhat aroused. So when she talked to André after she saw him break away from Jade after their hug, she was justifiably concerned about his mental and emotional state now that he had been in such close proximity with her.

_"Jade hugged you," Tori reminded in a seemingly worried tone._

_"Yeah, she did," André answered in a somewhat similar voice._

_"So, you okay now? You wonky?" _

_"I'm not sure, it might take me a little while before I know if I -"_

Just as André was about to finish his answer, an attractive brunette girl had walked over towards the pair, although her focus was clearly on him and not on Tori. The song, and possibly also André himself, had appealed greatly to the young woman, so it didn't seem surprising when she happily approached him to join her for the rest of the night.

_"Oh my gosh, André. That song was so hot," the girl said excitedly._

_"Yeah?" André responded._

_"Yeah. Wanna go hang?" The young woman's tone was now flirtatious and somewhat seductive._

_"I could hang."_

With that, André began walking off with his new female companion. But before he totally left away from his friends, and the school for the evening, he walked back over to Tori and jokingly asked _"Jade who?" _before walking away for good. Understanding that André didn't have any malicious or hurtful intent behind his comment, Tori laughed and smiled, partly because she was happy to see her friend in such a great mood and with somebody who was not only truly interested in him, but also available. But more importantly, she was happy because André had gotten over his wonk... or so it seemed.

**(Asphalt Café at Hollywood Arts, Monday October 10, 2011)**

It was now lunchtime on the first day of school after the concert, and on the surface, everything appeared to be business as usual for all of the students at Hollywood Arts, especially for the popular "sixsome" who, with the exception of Tori, had been tight over the past three or four years. But within the group, something was off, way off. Tori knew it, Jade knew it, and Beck and Robbie may have even been aware of it. There was a possibility that Cat knew something was up too, but given the redhead's childlike personality and general lack of intelligence, both of which had become even more consistent lately, it was highly doubtful.

After the ditzy teen finished yet another crazy tale about her brother's wild mishaps, the half-Latina pop-star hopeful, who had been picked up on André's gloomier-than-usual mood, had made an attempt to get the usually upbeat teen to open up about his somber state.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Tori asked André in a concerned manner.

"Yeah, sure. Everything's cool," André said. His tone and even his half-hearted smile would have made it seem as if he was telling the truth to an outsider, but his friends, or at least the two young women that may have considered each other rivals, weren't buying it.

"Are you sure? Because you've been really quiet today."

"Yeah, Vega has a point," Jade added in a worried tone, which was rare coming from her. "Normally, you're all upbeat and generally happy. But today, you just seem really out of it."

"Did something bad happen between you and the girl you left with on Friday night?" Beck asked, remembering the brunette who flocked over to André after his and Tori's performance. Robbie was practically ready to ask the same question, but Beck basically beat him to the punch.

"No, man. Nothing bad happened between us," André responded, who was feeling both irritated by the constant questioning coming from his friends, and stressed and panicky at the thought of what might happen if everybody, particularly Jade and Beck, knew about his feelings for her.

"Then what's the problem?" Robbie asked.

"Yeah, man. Are you getting wonky again?" Rex added. This was a notable question because of how André had behaved immediately after he and Tori talked to Jade and Beck, and he didn't play the song because they would have found out that it was about Jade, specifically because it mentioned her by name.

"Look, just because I'm not all happy-go-skippy today, it doesn't mean that something's wrong, alright?" André said, still feeling somewhat irritated. As he finished the last of his burger and fries, he then continued by saying, "I'm alright, I'm fine, so there's no reason to get all panicked and ask a bunch of questions."

Luckily for him, lunch was almost over, and while he was gonna see his friends again in a matter of minutes, there was some time between then and their class with Sikowitz, so he would have some sort of break from their interrogation, even if it was all too brief.

Just as other students started leaving the Asphalt Café to head back inside of the school, André got up from the table and followed suit, leaving Tori, Jade, Beck and Robbie stunned by his sudden departure. For Cat, however, this seemed like a perfect time for her to tell yet another wild tale about her brother.

"One time, my brother ate a whole jar of peanut butter, and when he finished, he found 10 dollars inside, and he was all happy-go-skippy," Cat said happily.

Rather than try to figure out why Cat's brother had even attempted to eat a whole jar of peanut butter at once, much less why he actually did it, or why there was 10 bucks inside, the gang went back into the school along with the rest of the students, with Cat having bounced in since she had yet again worn her Jupiter Boots to school.

Once inside, Tori, Beck, Robbie and Cat headed for Sikowitz's classroom, but Jade went looking for André, because deep down, she was worried about her friend's demeanor throughout the day. Decked out in her usual all-black attire with the exception of a short-sleeved camouflage-green T-shirt, Jade looked around the main hallway of the school, until she had seen the musician, who had on a royal/light blue Hollywood Arts hoodie and a matching T-shirt and pair of sneakers with black jeans, standing at his keyboard-customized locker. Just as Jade was about to approach André, she unknowingly ran into Trina, which didn't sit well at all with the wannabe diva.

"Would it kill you to watch where you're going?" Trina grumbled angrily.

"No, but next time, if _you_ don't watch where _you're_ going, then I might kill _you_," Jade said in the same tone.

The ego-tripped brunette, who was wearing a gray T-shirt with the words "Wanna Dance?", blue jeans and a pair of black-and-white Converses, bumped shoulders with the Goth as she walked away, but not before having one last bitter exchange of words.

"Evil grunch."

"Talentless bitch."

Once the brief name-calling session had ended, Jade returned her focus back to her original plan, which was to find André and figure out what was behind his less-than-stellar mood. Getting his attention wouldn't be so difficult, since, as it turned out, he had saw the end of the short but bitter discussion between her and Trina.

"What was that all about between you and Trina?" André asked, confused by the sudden argument and generally concerned about his friend.

"Don't worry about that. That's over with. But me and you, we need to talk," Jade responded seriously.

"But we gotta get to Sikowitz's class."

"And we will, but we're gonna be a little late."

"Come on, Jade. What's so important for us to talk about that we're more or less ditching class?" Although he had been harboring feelings for Jade for nearly the past week, the only person that he had expressed that to was Tori, and he trusted her enough to assume that she hadn't said anything about it to Jade or anyone else. So he could at least act like this conversation was happening out of the blue, even if for him, this was a situation where "it was gonna happen eventually."

"For one thing, we're not ditching class, we're just gonna be late. Besides, for all we know, this might be one of those days where Sikowitz is the one who's late, and in this case, later than we are." The last part made some sense to André, having remembered that their teacher had showed up to class 10 minutes late one day last week, having been depressed over the breakup with his girlfriend. "But more importantly, we have to talk because aside from the concert on Friday night, ever since that night that we recorded the song, you've been acting weird. And I normally don't say this, but I'm worried about you. You're one of my best friends, and it's bugging me that you've been acting like this. If something is wrong, you should tell somebody."

"Look, I appreciate that you're concerned about me and my issues, and you're right, there is something wrong. But it's really, really personal, and it's way too hard to talk about it. I tried talking about it with Tori, and I thought that it worked, but apparently, it didn't. So it's probably just better if I left it alone."

Just as André was about to walk away and go to class, Jade gently grabbed onto his shoulder just as he passed Tori's locker before standing in front of him. Had this been any other day with any other person, even Beck or Cat, Jade would have just pulled them by their hands, dragged them into the janitor's closet without any real thought and forced them to spill their guts. But today was different, the situation was different, and most of all, this was André that she was dealing with, so she understood that in order to get him to talk, it would require a little finesse, sympathy and tenderness - words that weren't usually associated with Jade West.

Now standing face-to-face with André, and lightly gripping his arms, Jade then said, "okay, listen. Maybe it is hard to talk about, but I know you, and you usually don't hide things from people, so why would you hide this?"

"Jade, look. I appreciate you trying to help, but I don't think you get how hard this is to talk about -"

"If anybody knows what it's like to have something that's hard to talk about, then it would be me. It's pretty much one of my things. Why else do you think I don't have deep conversations about anything?"

"Because you hate talking about your problems... Better yet, you don't really like talking to people in general."

"Okay, that's another part of it. But seriously, André. I walk around with enough anger, frustration and unhappiness for everybody in this school, and that might work for me, but it doesn't help you. You're a great guy, and a lot of that has to do with how easygoing you are. If you hold this in, then it'll eventually lead to you holding other things inside, and if you do that, then... you could end up like me, and you shouldn't be that way. You deserve better than that for yourself. So can you just talk to me? Please?"

If nothing else had convinced André to listen to Jade's advice, then her sad tone of voice and the fact that she took his hands into hers just before she finished talking definitely had to be the selling point to get him to verbally bare his soul in the next few minutes. Still nervous, skeptical and concerned about what might happen if he listened to Jade, but also aware of what likely would happen if he didn't - both because of what she said and what she didn't say, he followed Jade into the janitor's closet, where many other crucial conversations between the group had taken place in the past, and mentally braced himself for any possible outcome that resulted in him confessing his feelings to her.

Once they made it inside the janitor's closet, André made his way towards the back near the toolbox, while Jade simply remained by the door. Knowing the magnitude of the conversation that was about to take place, he realized that he had to make sure that their friendship would remain intact, regardless of how it turned out.

"Listen, like I said a few seconds ago, what we're about to discuss, it's really personal, and it's been bugging the hell out of me, because it's a really big deal, and it doesn't just affect me. I need to know right now that if I tell you everything, you won't be mad or upset after I let you know what's going on."

"Well, I can't make any promises, but if you tell me the truth, and I mean _the whole truth, _then I might not be so harsh on you," Jade said, uttering the last part in a seemingly joking manner. "Now spill it, Harris."

Taking a deep breath before putting his hands in his pockets as he stood against the toolbox, André began the long, definitely mentally and emotionally painful, and possibly physically painful process of confessing his feelings for Jade.

"Okay, so this whole thing started last week when I started working on the song for my advanced songwriting class," André began. "I initially asked Tori to help, and obviously, that's what happened anyway, since we performed it at the concert last Friday night."

"Yeah, I know that. I was meaning to ask you, why didn't you just keep working with Tori anyway?"

"Because she had to prepare for the tech theater exam. That's why she had been spending so much time with Robbie, because he was helping her out. But anyway, I couldn't ask Cat to sing because she's been too busy bouncing around in those Jupiter Boots to focus on anything. I swear, that girl's been turning into a little kid lately."

"Oh yeah, she has," Jade said in agreement with André's last point. "But anyway, what about the song?"

"Yeah, so Tori had to prepare for her exam, Cat was too worried about 'being bouncy' with her Jupiter Boots, and obviously, there was no way in hell that I was asking Trina to sing. So you were my best option left at that point."

"I'm your best option anyway, but go on." Jade and André both laughed at her bragging attempt at humor. However, that ended quickly, as she waited for him to continue on with the story.

"So later on, when the time came for us to start working on the song, and Beck came by the studio, we had talked for a quick second, and I was actually nervous about the whole thing."

"Why? What was there for you to be nervous about?"

"Well, when Beck came by and asked if you were there, I... I might have told him that you scare me."

"I scare you?" Jade asked, feeling shocked and confused.

"You scare everybody!" André replied. Normally, hearing that kind of thing would make Jade grin from ear to ear, but now, in the presence of one of her oldest friends, the revelation had stunned her, and to a degree, it had even saddened her. "But anyway, I was already scared to begin with, and it didn't help that when you finally showed up, you were threatening to kill Sinjin because he had sat on your scissors."

"Well, I couldn't help it. When Sinjin sat on them, they lost their 'sciss'," Jade replied.

"Well, seeing as how you threw them at the wall and they actually went through the 'instrument use is a privilege' sign, I'm not sure how true that actually was."

As André finished that statement, Jade shot him a glare that seemed to say, "don't try to argue with me about my scissors," before actually saying, "well, you seemed okay once we started to work on the song, so I can't be that scary."

"We were working hard on the song, so I couldn't really think about being scared," André said. "And you were actually being nice for a change, so that helped too."

"Well, believe it or not, even I can be nice... sometimes." The pair again began to laugh, before Jade quickly got back to the subject. "But seriously, that still doesn't explain why you've been acting so weird lately."

"Well... aside from not being able to think of a chorus, there wasn't any real issue. In fact, once you did the whole hand trick thing, that's kind of where everything started. Then when you sung that part from 'Okay', I was finished."

"What do you mean?"

"Once we left here and went home, I couldn't sleep, because I... I couldn't stop thinking about you." As André said this, Jade's eyes had practically shot open. If he didn't have her attention before, which was highly doubtful, then he definitely had it now. "I mean, it even got to the point where I rode my bike to the Vegas' place at 3 in the morning because of that."

"Okay, I get that you said that you couldn't sleep because you were thinking about me, but what about me could have possessed you to go talk to Vega at 3AM?" Jade asked, somewhat amused. "I mean, I know I might have the capability to keep people up at night, but it can't be so bad that it causes them to wake other people up from their sleep. So what gives, Harris?"

"What gives is that when I went to talk to Tori at 3AM the other night, it was because I had to tell her that I'm in love with you! Don't kill me!" André exclaimed in a panicked tone.

The usually witty, sharp-tongued Goth was now stunned and speechless. It usually took a miracle to make Jade West either one of those things, and now in one sentence, André had managed to do both. But rather than feeling angry, upset or even feeling the need to ask him if he was crazy, Jade simply tried to process the shocking confession her friend had just made.

"So... you're in love with me?" Jade asked as she walked closer to André, resting her right hand on his left shoulder as the usually upbeat teen now had a hard time even looking her in her face.

"Yeah, I... I am. And if I'm not in love, then I might seriously have the strongest crush ever known to mankind. It's driving me nuts," André answered.

"Being in love with me is driving you nuts?"

"No, Jade, the simple fact that I'm in love with you isn't what's driving me nuts," André began. "You aren't the problem. I mean, you're smart, beautiful, you're talented. You're strong, you're honest - brutally honest, but you're still honest. And even though you usually act mean, I know that deep down, you're really sweet when you let yourself be that way. I've known it for years, but I really saw it come to light last week when we worked on the song together."

Jade briefly smiled at André's compliments, but it faded away quickly when she asked, "so if I'm not the problem, then what, or who is?"

"You and Beck have been two of my best friends for years. He's like the brother I don't have, and with me even thinking about you romantically, let alone being in love with you, it's like I'm stabbing him in the back a thousand times over, and I feel like shit because of it."

Understanding André's dilemma, but wanting to know more about how his love for, or crush on her had come about, Jade then asked him, "so what did Tori say when you talked to her about it?"

"After a while, she eventually told me that everything I was feeling was just because it was late, and because me and you had been working on the song almost the whole night, and that I was tired and overemotional about it. She thought that if I went back home and slept it off, then I would be fine by the morning. So I listened to her because it sounded like good advice."

"But it wasn't."

"Not really," André answered. "In fact, my feelings had only intensified when I got back home. Not only did I stay up the whole night, but then I started working on '365 Days'. I thought I was gonna be over everything once I got to school, but as it turned out, I was still wonky. That's one reason why I couldn't play the song when you and Beck came by Tori's locker."

"So what was the other reason?"

"'365 Days' was about you."

"That song was about me?" Jade asked, stunned at the latest piece of information.

"It was about you, for you, however you wanna put it, that's how it is," André said. "All the times I said 'baby' in the song when we performed it on Friday, it was a replacement for your name."

"You had to change it so that neither one of us would find out."

"Yeah, basically. I don't think it would have worked out well if I was up on stage openly serenading another guy's girlfriend, especially since said guy and girlfriend are my best friends."

Having nodded her head in agreement, but also wondering how he managed to convince Tori to join him onstage, Jade then asked André, "how did you get Vega to sing the song with you if she knew what it was about?"

"Well, believe it or not, Tori actually came up with the idea to sing it at the concert. She even asked if she could sing with me," André began. "It actually came up when I went back to her place the same day that I told you that I would e-mail you the song."

"So what happened this time?"

"See, she had sent me a text asking me to come over to her house. Then, once she finally came down after I got there, she had actually tried to imitate you, and - "

"She did what?" Jade asked in a stern tone.

"She tried to imitate you. It was like a role-playing exercise, basically," André continued.

"Okay, what the hell was she doing by trying to imitate me?"

"Wait, wait, wait. There wasn't anything bad about it, or at least it wasn't meant to be. See, Tori thought that if she dressed like you and acted like you, it would show me that it wasn't a good idea for me to be in love with you, and that would help me to get over my crush."

"Apparently, that didn't do anything to help you either."

"Nope. Even with her yelling and trying to insult me, it didn't make me give up my crush," André started. "In fact, at one point, I had even tried to kiss her because it reminded me of you. That's how messed up I've been over this."

Now with her back against the door, Jade began blinking repeatedly, trying to fight back tears as she had finally come to grips with everything that she had heard in the last few minutes. "So, this whole week, you've been acting so strange because you're in love with me, or at least because you have a crush on me."

"Yeah, that's pretty much the reason why. It's why I had - Jade, what's wrong?" Right as he was gonna finish his thought, André had noticed Jade beginning to cry, a task that would have been difficult had he not heard a sniffling noise, since there wasn't any trace of makeup running down her face with her tears.

"Nothing's wrong, it's just... I didn't think that there was any other guy who felt that way about me. I mean, my dad doesn't really care about me, and usually when somebody else says the kind of things you did, it's usually coming from somebody like Sinjin or Robbie, or some other desperate nerd who'll take any attention from a girl that they can get. And even though Beck says it sometimes, I have to wonder how much he really means it because of all the attention that he gets from other girls. But hearing you tell me everything that you just told me, it sounds so real, like you really mean it."

"Well, yeah, I do mean it, Jade,"André assured his friend. "I mean, I'm not completely sure that I'm in love with you as much as I say I am, but all of those things that I told you since we've been in here about what and who you are, I was dead serious about all of that."

After wiping away the remainder of her tears, Jade then walked back towards André, then said to him, "again."

"What do you mean, 'again'?" André asked, confused.

"All of the things that you told me that I was, I want you to tell them to me again."

Taking a deep breath just as he had done before the conversation originally began, André then said, "okay. You're smart, you're talented, you're beautiful - "

Just as André was gonna finish repeating his compliments of Jade, she then placed her hands on his face as she went to kiss him. Once they had started locking lips, she then wrapped her arms around his neck, and in return, he moved his hands down her back and briefly gripped her waist, and eventually, he slowly but surely grabbed her butt, and not only did Jade not stop him, but the move had even encouraged her to keep kissing him.

Once they finally separated, Jade then said, "now I know why that Sherry chick wanted to kiss you all the time."

"That's pretty much all she wanted from me," André began in response. "But seriously, why did _you _kiss me just now?"

"Well, when a handsome guy goes around giving compliments, it does things to a girl. I think Trina could vouch for that. But all jokes aside, I do love you too, André. I can't really say that I'm in love with you, and I can't and won't dump Beck to be with you, but I love you just the same. You're a great friend, and a even better guy, and any girl would be lucky to have you, whether it's Tori, Sherry, some other girl, or even if I did end up with you in the future. I just hope that whenever you do find the one, it'll be someone who actually deserves you."

"Thanks Jade. That means a lot, especially coming from you."

"Oh, shut up," Jade said, laughing at the last part of André's sentence. Having looked at her PearPhone, she noticed that they were about five minutes late for class, and because of that, she then told him, "now, maybe we should get to class."

"Yeah, we need to get going," André said in agreement.

As both teens grabbed their backpacks off of the floor, Jade and André both began to walk out of the janitor's closet on the way to Sikowitz's class. But before they left out, Jade remembered a couple of key things that she and André needed to agree on.

"Okay, before we leave out of here, there are two things that we need to establish right now."

"And they are?"

"Well, for one, first and foremost, what just happened here in the janitor's closet, it stays here in the janitor's closet. I don't regret anything that just went down, but I know that you're worried about being looked at as a bad friend, and of course, neither of us wants to have Beck find out and be hurt, angry and upset."

"Okay, that's no problem. What's the second thing?"

"Secondly, the next time you wanna kiss, don't settle for some cheap imitation that Vega tries to do. You come and see me to get the real thing."

"Okay, but how do you know that there's gonna be a next time?"

"How do you know that there won't be one?" Jade then kissed André one last time before leaving for class. As she walked away, André said to himself, "damn, girl," almost just like he and Mr. Vega did when Tori role-played as Jade to help him get over his crush. And with that, he followed Jade en route to Sikowitz's classroom.

**Well, there it goes. My first attempt at an André/Jade fic is now finished. I might have rocked whatever is left of the fandom on the site, or maybe not, but if I did, then oh well. But anyway, now that I'm done with this, I can put my attention back on finishing the "WhizGrunchShower" series and the unnamed sequel to an earlier oneshot, or at least I hope I can. But for now, just let me know what you thought of this. Good night, everybody. I'm out!**


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